Black Hawk Pilot Claims Religious Right to Sell LSD

A United States Black Hawk pilot currently being investigated for drug trafficking says he’s facing religious persecution for selling and using LSD as sacrament. 

By day, Kyle Norton Riester served as first lieutenant with the 12th Aviation Battalion at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. By night, he shipped orders of LSD on the dark web.

Facing serious drug charges from federal prosecutors, Riester recently asked for injunctive relief, arguing that he has every right to dispense “sacrament-grade LSD” to his “co-religionists” under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Riester says his use of LSD is a religious exercise, “deeply religious and mystical in nature” which allows him “direct communion with his creator.”

But prosecutors say Riester is simply a drug trafficker who sold drugs to the highest bidder, regardless of their beliefs.

Is this a legitimate case of religious persecution by the federal government against a minority faith, or an attempt to use the trippiest “get out of jail free” card ever?

Sacrament-Grade LSD

Should Riester’s religious freedom argument fail, he could be facing significant jail time. Prosecutors say he shipped some 1,800 LSD orders over the dark web, netting him $122,000 over 11 months. Alleged buyers include undercover police officers as well as a 15-year-old.

Prosecutors say Riester’s religious freedom argument falls apart because he used the dark web to facilitate sales. The dark web is a hidden side of the internet not accessible without specific software often used for illegal, anonymous activities like drug sales. Prosecutors say that given the anonymous nature of the dark web, Riester was by definition not able to vet the religious beliefs of his buyers.

As the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia stated in a court filing, Riester “did not sell LSD in the context of a religious gathering or ritual, or to people with whom he shared spiritual experiences; he sold LSD on the dark web, a forum designed to ensure the anonymity of its users.”

Religious Persecution?

Riester says this is nothing less than persecution against a minority faith. To stop his use and sale of LSD sacrament now, he says, would cause him to "suffer irreparable harm to his conscience and religious identity."

Riester’s attorney George Lake argues his consumption of LSD is a necessary part of his “spiritual journey.” What began with mushrooms and ayahuasca, Lake says, “naturally evolved for him into LSD, [which] he found was his preferred and best method for communion with his conception of God.”

Riester began consuming LSD with his fellow faith practitioners in person, but took things online during the COVID-19 quarantine. As court filings read, Riester “adapted” during a time of “desperate need,” feeling "a moral and religious obligation to provide his co-religionists with Sacrament should they be unable to acquire Sacrament-grade LSD safely and securely.”

Riester says the operation went digital only because he was doing his part to closely follow COVID safety guidelines. In May 2024, when he was certain he didn’t need to follow COVID-era social distancing rules any longer, Riester voluntarily deleted his dark web account and ceased all online sales. 

Will It Work?

From mushroom churches to weed churches and beyond, controlled substances have long been legally claimed as religious sacrament. And these churches often successfully defend their sacrament in courts, pointing to ancient traditions of Indigenous faiths using these psychedelic substances in religious rituals dating back millennia.

But is Riester’s faith sincere? Prosecutors say no, arguing that Riester only claimed he’s facing religious persecution some eight months after learning about the federal investigation against him.

And yet, Riester says his LSD sacrament is as sincere as it gets. He used it as part of “spiritual transformation and religious revelation,” court documents say,” to “promote safety, reflection, and shared religious experience."

To deny him the right to use and sell LSD, he says, is blatant religious discrimination by an overzealous federal government.

What do you think? Is Riester’s faith sincere, or is his religious freedom argument a legal hail mary? And should the government even have the right to say what is and is not legitimate religious sacrament?